DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims
This Final Office action is in reply to the amendments/remarks filed on 15 September 2025.
Claims 7-8, 15-16 have been canceled.
Claims 1-6, 9-14 and 17-20 are currently pending and have been examined.
Previous Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Examiner withdraws the 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph rejections of Claims 1, 9 and 17 in view of the Applicant’s amendments.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-6, 9-14 and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., an abstract idea) without significantly more, and therefore directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Under Step 1 the claims are analyzed to determine whether the claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention, i.e., process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.
In the instant case, claims 1-6 are directed to a system, claims 9-14 are directed to a method and claims 17-20 are directed to a non-transitory computer readable medium. Thus, these claims fall within one of the four statutory categories. Nonetheless, the claims fall within the judicial exception of an abstract idea.
Under Step 2A Prong 1, the claims are analyzed to determine whether the claims recite any judicial exceptions including certain groupings of abstract ideas (i.e., mathematical concepts, certain methods of organizing human activity such as a fundamental economic practice, or mental processes).
The limitations of claims 1, 9 and 17 can be considered as belonging to certain methods of organizing human activity abstract idea category as they recite, receive a request to verify an eligibility of the user…determine whether the user is eligible based on a determination of consistency… the second plurality of transaction records and the first plurality of transaction records having the identified missing values added thereto, in response to a determination that the user is eligible, schedule a plurality of future transaction or disbursements to be executed…and transmit the plurality of future transactions or disbursements to …the user at the plurality of different times in response to expirations of the plurality of TTL jobs respectively.
The limitations are considered to be certain methods of organizing human activity because the limitations pertain to analyzing transaction records related to a user to verify the eligibility of the user, scheduling future transactions or disbursements to the user in response to the user being eligible and transmitting the future and disbursements to an account of the user. In this way the claim recites a concept related to managing transactions/disbursement based on eligibility. Therefore the claims fall within the Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activities grouping of abstract ideas such as fundamental economic practice/principles, commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations) [See MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)Part II]. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Dependent claims 2, 10, 18 further reiterate the abstract idea of determining a user’s eligibility to receive further transactions or disbursement with further embellishments including receiving a request to verify the eligibility of the user. The dependent claims are nonetheless directed towards fundamentally the same abstract ideas as indicated for independent claims 1, 9 and 17.
Dependent claims 3-6, 11-14, 19 and 20 recite the limitations, extract a value of a target data point from each data record in the plurality of data records to obtain a plurality of extracted values associated with the user for the target data point, respectively, and determine a consistency of the value associated with the user for the target data point across the plurality of extracted values of the target data point; determine whether the user is eligible based on the determined consistency of the value of the target data point associated with the user; receiving as an input thereto the first plurality of transaction records and the second plurality of transaction records to identify, one or more matching electronic transactions included in both the first and second plurality of transaction records,…determine whether the user is eligible based on the one or more identified matching electronic transactions included in both the first and second plurality of transaction records; identify that a first transaction record included in the first plurality of transaction records and a second transaction record included in the second plurality of transaction records are from opposing sides of the common transaction based on a counterparty identity attribute identified from the first transaction record.
Dependent claims 3-6, 11-14, 19 and 20 can be considered as belonging to the mental process abstract idea category because the claims are directed to determining and verifying a user’s eligibility by evaluating and comparing transactions associated with the user. The recited steps do not involve any activities that cannot be practically accomplished by the human mind by evaluating and matching transaction records, by human judgement and/or via pen & paper.
Under Step 2A Prong 2 the claims are analyzed to determine whether the claims recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. Claims 1 and 9 recite additional elements including a data store, processor, application programming interfaces, a network of distributed computing machines, account server, automatically executing. Claim 17 recites additional elements including non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions which when executed by a computer cause a processor to perform the method steps. In light of the Specification, there is no indication that the claimed steps performed by the claimed computing components require any specialized computer hardware or particular machine, or invoke any inventive programming. Nowhere in the Specification does the Applicant emphasize additional hardware and/or software elements which provide an actual improvement in computer functionality. In this case, the claims merely involve automated steps executed by computing components at a high-level of generality with no technical improvement to the functioning of the computer elements or processor itself. See also Credit Acceptance Corp. v. Westlake Servs., 859 F.3d 1044, 1055 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (holding that “mere automation of manual processes using generic computers does not constitute a patentable improvement”). At best, the additional elements merely pertain to using the program and processor as a tool to perform the recited abstract idea. Automating the recited claimed features using a computer does not qualify an otherwise unpatentable abstract idea as patent eligible since the processor is merely performing generic computer functions (i.e., storing, receiving, identifying, determining, and transmitting data) such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to implement the abstract idea recited above by adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception. See MPEP 2106.05(f & h).
is merely equivalent to “apply it,” as it merely limits the model to being a machine learning model. Furthermore, it recites the machine learning so broadly that it is no more than a recitation of generic machine learning without specific steps that would potentially be an improvement to machine learning technology.
The limitations “execute a machine learning model” is used to generally apply the abstract idea without placing any limits on how the machine learning model functions. See MPEP 2106.05(f). The machine learning model is recited so broadly that it no more than a recitation of generic machine learning without specific steps that would potentially be an improvement to machine learning technology. The recitation of “executing a machine learning model” also merely indicates a field of use or technological environment in which the judicial exception is performed and thus fails to add an inventive concept to the claims. See MPEP 2106.05(h).
The additional elements, a data store configured to store a first plurality of transaction records and a second plurality of transaction records associated with a user, the first plurality of transaction records and a second plurality of transaction records being sourced from a plurality of external sources via one or more application programming interfaces (APIs); write results of the user eligibility determination to the data store; transmit the results of the user eligibility determination to a network of distributed computing machines, the network of distributed computing machines configured to maintain an immutable chronological record of the results of the user eligibility determination transmitted thereto; store in a memory, a plurality of time-to-love (TTL) jobs with a plurality of different times, respectively, corresponding to when the plurality of future transactions are to be executed; transmit, in response to an execution of one or more of the scheduled plurality of future transactions or disbursements, confirmation(s) of the automatically executed future transactions or disbursement(s) to the network of distributed computing machines, the network of distributed computing machines configured to maintain an immutable chronological record of the confirmation(s) of the automatically executed future transactions or disbursement(s) transmitted thereto are recited at a high level of generality which amount to mere data gathering and storage which is a form of insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP §2106.05(g).
Dependent claims 2-6, 10-14 and 18-20 recite similar additional elements as claims 1. 9 and 17 and amount to no more than mere instructions to implement the abstract idea recited above by adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception.
Moreover, dependent claims recite additional elements including, receive a blockchain transaction with a request to verify the eligibility of the user, and in response, execute one or more of a blockchain query and a smart contract to read the first and second plurality of transaction records from a distributed blockchain ledger and write the results of the determination of whether the user is eligible to one or more distributed blockchain ledger(s), wherein the network of distributed computing machines implements the one or more distributed blockchain ledger(s); obtain a plurality of data records including data associated with the user are recited at a high level of generality which amount to mere data gathering and storage which is a form of insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP §2106.05(g).
The recitation, “execute a second machine learning model via the execution of the second machine learning model” also merely indicates a field of use or technological environment in which the judicial exception is performed and thus fails to add an inventive concept to the claims. See MPEP 2106.05(h).
Accordingly, even in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims are directed to an abstract idea.
Under Step 2B the claims are analyzed to determine whether the claims recite additional elements that amount to an inventive concept (aka “significantly more”) than the recited judicial exception.
As a whole, claims 1-6, 9-14 and 17-20 do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements amount mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Instead, the computing components are being used as tools to perform the abstract idea. Automating the recited claimed features using a computer does not qualify an otherwise unpatentable abstract idea as patent eligible since it amounts to no more than mere instructions to implement the abstract idea recited above by adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or providing nothing more than generally linking the use of the abstract to a particular technological environment or field of use. See MPEP 2106.05(f & h). For the same reasons, the recited elements are insufficient to provide an inventive concept and fail to impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
For the steps that were considered extra-solution activity in Step 2A, this has been re-evaluated in Step 2B and determined to be well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the field. See MPEP 2106.05(d). The legal precedent in Symantec, Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., Content Extraction and Transmission, LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, and OIP Techs court decisions cited in MPEP §2106.05(d)(II) indicated that, receiving or transmitting data over a network, storing data and retrieving data from storage are a well-understood, routine, and conventional functions when claimed in a generic manner, as is the case here.
Thus, after considering all claim elements, both individually, in combination and in ordered combination, it has been demonstrated that claims 1-6, 9-14 and 17-20 as a whole are not sufficient to transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention since the claim limitations fail to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application nor amount to significantly more than an abstract idea.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments regarding the 35 USC 101 rejections have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant contends that the amended claims are not directed to the any abstract ideas. However, the examiner disagrees with the Applicant. As explained in the rejection above, are considered to be certain methods of organizing human activity because the limitations pertain to steps of analyzing transaction records related to a user to verify the eligibility of the user, scheduling future transactions or disbursements to the user in response to the user being eligible and transmitting the future and disbursements to an account of the user. In this way the claim recites a concept related to managing transactions/disbursement based on eligibility. Therefore the claims fall within the Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activities grouping of abstract ideas such as fundamental economic practice/principles, commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations) [See MPEP 2106.04(a)(2)Part II].
The computing components as recited in the claims are generically recited to perform computing functions of receiving, processing, storing, and transmitting data. In light of the Specification, there is no indication that the claimed steps performed by the processors or non-transitory computer readable medium require any specialized computer hardware or particular machine, or invoke any inventive programming. Nowhere in the Specification does the Applicant emphasize additional hardware and/or software elements which provide an actual improvement in computer functionality. In this case, the claims merely involve automated steps executed by computing components at a high-level of generality with no technical improvement to the functioning of the computer elements or processor itself. Automating the recited claimed features using a computer does not qualify an otherwise unpatentable abstract idea as patent eligible since the processor is merely performing generic computer functions such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to implement the abstract idea recited above by adding the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception. See MPEP 2106.05(f & h).
Examiner asserts that using the claimed computing system to verify eligibility and transmit disbursements to the user is not sufficient to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. As explained in the rejection above, the additional elements, a data store configured to store a first plurality of transaction records and a second plurality of transaction records associated with a user, the first plurality of transaction records and a second plurality of transaction records being sourced from a plurality of external sources via one or more application programming interfaces (APIs); write results of the user eligibility determination to the data store; transmit the results of the user eligibility determination to a network of distributed computing machines, the network of distributed computing machines configured to maintain an immutable chronological record of the results of the user eligibility determination transmitted thereto; store in a memory, a plurality of time-to-love (TTL) jobs with a plurality of different times, respectively, corresponding to when the plurality of future transactions are to be executed; transmit, in response to an execution of one or more of the scheduled plurality of future transactions or disbursements, confirmation(s) of the executed payment(s) or disbursement(s) to the network of distributed computing machines, the network of distributed computing machines configured to maintain an immutable chronological record of the confirmation(s) of the executed payment(s) or disbursement(s) transmitted thereto are recited at a high level of generality which amount to mere data gathering and storage which is a form of insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP §2106.05(g). The “machine learning model” is used to generally apply the abstract idea without placing any limits on how the machine learning model functions. See MPEP 2106.05(f). The recitation of “executing a machine learning model” also merely indicates a field of use or technological environment in which the judicial exception is performed and thus fails to add an inventive concept to the claims. See MPEP 2106.05(h).
Applicant contends that “the methods and systems disclosed in the Specification and recited in the pending claims (amended claim 1) are rooted in computer technology to address a problem specifically arising in the realm of verifying an eligibility of a user and transmitting disbursements to an eligible user.” Examiner, however, points out that the verifying an eligibility of a user based on electronic data and transmitting disbursement to an eligible user is not a problem rooted in technology and the claims do not solve a technical problem. The types of data being used to determine eligibility does not impose meaningful limits on the claims. The claims computing components are merely used as tools to analyze user data, store data, schedule and transmit disbursements which fail to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose meaningful limitations. Examiner maintains that the claims are patent ineligible.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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MAAME BALLOU
Examiner
Art Unit 3629
/MAAME BALLOU/Examiner, Art Unit 3629
/LYNDA JASMIN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3629